Completed: Christmas Quilt!

I have another completed project today!  And yet again, it is woefully out of season.  But I guess that's what happens when you pick up WIPs eleven months later?

This Easy Bake With a Layer Cake quilt top was my first quilt top, completed last August.  I meant to quilt and bind it before Christmas, and even sent it to my mom's house for her to work on, but then she gave it right back to me!  To be honest, I never really knew how I wanted to quilt it.  There are so many angles and lines, so straight-line quilting wouldn't be a great choice.  I didn't know how to use the built-in free-motion quilting feature on my old sewing machine (the classic stipple), so waiting really didn't affect anything.  I knew I'd come up with something eventually.

My Bernina came with the Bernina Stitch Regulator, a fancy little foot that hooks into the machine's computer.  It reads the fabric and the sewist's motions to keep stitches as consistently-sized as possible.  For a newbie, this made things extremely easy!

Bernina Stitch Regulator

In action!

I used the BSR to quilt chains and stars going vertically down the length of the quilt.  It was definitely a learning experience--the machine would beep whenever I'd move things too quickly, and it beeped a lot!  I used a new 90/14 quilting needle to help with skipped stitches and I got the hang of it about four or five chains in.  I'm no expert, but I feel a little more comfortable now.

All the fabrics used are Dear Mr. Claus from Cosmo Cricket, a Moda line from 2012.  I really love the snowflakes for the backing--they're so simple!

Now I just have one unfinished quilt top.  I'll have some other projects to show you in the meantime, but I'm so excited to be done with WIPs!

We Have a Quilt Top!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...my first quilt top!

"The quilt you can make in a day," as the envelope states, though it took me closer to two weeks.  Oh well!  I guess that's a day if you don't have a job and have lots of time to spend at your sewing machine.  I do not fit that criteria.

After my update last week, I took the time to press and layout the blocks Thursday night.  Nick had to work until almost nine, so it was me and Eleanor laying everything out.  I'd get it as I wanted it, then she'd run through and turn them all over.  What a big help!

Once they were laid out, which took all of ten minutes (including moving the couch for room), I stacked them up and sewed strips.  I timed it--it took an average of eight minutes to sew each block together for strips.  As I was finishing the last strip, Nick texted me to say he was on his way home.  Perfect!

Today I pressed the strips and joined them as instructed.  To look at this quilt without any background, it's almost overwhelming: there are lots of colors and it seems like there's no order in the placement.  But as you make it, you realize there's actually a ton of order and a repeat pattern throughout the whole thing.  I was really impressed with the design, the level of knowledge needed (not much, as evidenced by me) and the instructions.  

Once I finished, I realized my ironing board is too small to iron this (I made the throw size).  Shoot!  Sorry, folks.  If I take it to my mom's to get quilted, I use her board; otherwise, oh well!

I still don't have the backing or binding, but seeing as it's August and this is a Christmas quilt, I don't think I need to rush.  

Of course, my squares aren't perfect, so don't look too closely!  But for a first-timer, this isn't terrible.  And it's given me the confidence to make something new!  But what oh what should I make next?

How's your progress?  Any ideas on what I should do next?

We Have Blocks!

Well...we sorta have blocks.  We're well on our way to having blocks!

I tried to pace myself this past week because I don't want to burn out before the quilt top is done.  I took a couple nights, at an hour each, to work on my Easy Bake quilt.  An hour is the perfect amount of time for this quilt; in an hour Tuesday night, I was able to sew all 42 initial blocks; in an hour Thursday night, I pressed them and cut them into more strips.  I didn't feel rushed or like I wasn't doing things accurately.  This is a great quilt for a beginner!

As of today, here's what I have sitting on my sewing table:

I'm sure more advanced quilters see this and wonder what the fuss is about.  But this is big to me!

As you can see, each strip is now made of two fabrics instead of one.  My next step is to sew two strips together to create 9.5" squares, which are the final blocks.  I've matched up each strip to a "random" partner.  I put random in quotation marks because I didn't leave my selection to the quilt gods.  I didn't want blocks to have the same fabric next to each other, so if that came up while I was matching these, I did fool around with it a bit.

Side note, who are the quilting gods?  Kaffe Fassett?  Denyse Schmidt?  I'd go to that church.

Anyway, the second photo is a demonstration of how it should look after the blocks are sewn and I start piecing the quilt top together.  Those were the first three blocks on the stack, so I might not put those together, but I love how there's Christmas everywhere.  This quilt is going to make me so happy!

My plans for this week are:

• Sew the final blocks together.  I can probably do this tonight, in an hour after dinner.
• Start piecing the quilt top.  I'd love to get it all sewn, but our week is busy.  Tuesday is our anniversary and we have a friend visiting on Saturday for a week, so a lot of my time will be cleaning this apartment so she isn't completely grossed out.

I also need to buy backing and binding fabric.  There were a few prints not included in the Dear Mr. Claus layer cake, such as the Santas and the Christmas tags.  I'm trying to decide which to use for the backing, and I think I might use a red polka dot for the binding.  What are your thoughts?

If you're quilting, how'd your week go?  I'd love to see anything you've made!  I've been pinning the hell out of quilts lately!

Planning a Quilt, or, An Easy Way to Get Overwhelmed

I am a natural born planner.  I love that time before a project starts, no matter how excited I am about it, because anything is possible.  Anything!  When it comes to sewing, whether I'm planning a quilt or a shirt, I can imagine any fabric I want in any pattern and I'm not obligated or locked into something.  For someone with a lot of structure in her life, this freedom is amazing.

However, because I love blogs and Flickr, this stage can be exhaustingly overwhelming.  I obsessively bookmark and mark photos as "favorite," and I tend to pin a lot of projects I know I'll never get around to.  I put things in my cart on Etsy that are never purchased, but I never lose hope that I might own them someday!

So how do you keep yourself from falling into this trap with each project?  This is something I'm continuously learning, but I think the best idea is to have a plan.  If you have a plan and you hold yourself accountable, you'll find that you can keep your stash in check and finish projects.  You may not finish them on time, but you'll be less likely to give up on something because you didn't think it through and now you hate the fabric or pattern.

For my first quilt, after a couple days of never-ending online window shopping, I chose Cluck Cluck Sew's Easy Bake pattern.

I had been contemplating both online tutorial-only quilts and much more advanced patterns (including the oh so popular Swoon), but in the end, this was a cost-effective beginner option.  I didn't have to buy neutral fabric to incorporate into the blocks--one layer cake was all I needed for the quilt top, and when I was ready, I could purchase backing fabric and binding fabric.  No pressure and only a $40 investment.

The purchase of pattern and fabric went hand-in-hand for me.  I am a Christmas freak and thought, if I buy some Christmas fabric, I know I'll love the quilt no matter what.  That also gives me until December to finish (even though I will hopefully have it done before September!).  I chose a layer cake of Cosmo Cricket's Dear Mr. Claus line.  It didn't contain all the prints from the line, so I can use one that wasn't included for the backing, if I choose.

As of early last week, I was locked into a pattern and fabric.  My plan had played out, and because money isn't growing on any of my trees, I now had an obligation to make it.

To further ensure I would make this, I completed the first step Friday night, cutting the layer cake into strips and matching up random strips.  I'm keeping everything in a gallon-sized bag which is highly visible on my sewing table.

So now that I have something planned, I can get started.  This is often a scary step, because something bad could happen.  No one wants to fail, right?  But, this is also great, because something amazing could happen.  When I first started sewing, I worried I had sunk all this money (and my mom's money, because she bought me my machine) and I wasn't sure I could do it.  I hold myself to high standards, and I didn't know if I could live up to them.  But once I took that first step and attended a class to get started and refresh my very small skills, I learned that sewing came very naturally to me.  When you're a beginner, you have a kind of fearlessness that you lose as time goes on.  You don't know enough to realize darts and buttons are more advanced, and patterns usually come in time.  You just jump in and trust that you'll learn along the way.  I'm hoping quilting goes this way--I'll shoot for the proverbial stars and just hope that I don't mess up too badly.

I would like to show evidence of what happens when you don't stick to a plan.  You spend entirely too much money in one week!

Phew...all this money could have gone toward a new mouse or some RAM for my Mac, but instead, it's sitting on my table in fabric and patterns.  Oh well!  Everyone has a hobby.

Next week, I'll have an update on my progress.  Hopefully the 1/4" seam allowance hasn't eluded me!